Zhang Yiming is engaged in AI and has launched a number of applications one after another

E-commerce newspaper Pro

2024-05-06 16:02Posted on the official account of Guangdong E-commerce News

Douyin launched an AI camera

In terms of AI applications, Douyin has been revitalized again.

Tech Planet exclusive news, Douyin's Flow department has launched an APP called "Star Painting", which is an AI camera product that benchmarks the Miao Duck camera.

At the same time, Douyin has also launched an app "Picpic" with similar functions abroad.

Source: Star Painting APP

When it comes to the wonderful duck camera, you may be familiar with it. Last year, Ali successfully swiped the screen with the high-quality 9.9 yuan AI photo of the Miao Ya camera.

According to the data, the Baidu index of Miaoya Camera was as high as 7646 in the three days after it was launched, and the popularity of WeChat soared in just one week, with the highest peak of more than 18 million popularity, and the cumulative number of views on Xiaohongshu-related topics was more than 3.5 million in two weeks.

Miao Ya Camera has become the first C-end product to break the circle in the domestic AIGC field, and even rushed to the top five in the App store application list for a time.

However, the popularity of the wonderful duck camera did not last long, and it began to cool down in about a month, and its ranking in the application list quickly fell to outside the 400th.

Source: WeChat Index Mini Program

Despite this, the short-term explosion of the Miao Ya camera still made many manufacturers see the hope of domestic AI.

The Xinghua APP launched by Douyin this time also focuses on the AI picture function, including AI clones, AI retouching and Wensheng maps. Similar to the Miao Duck camera, Star Painting also supports custom AI clones to generate a variety of AI photos with different shapes.

The difference is that when the Miao Ya camera was just launched, users were required to provide more than 20 photos and pay a digital clone production fee of 9.9 yuan. Many netizens said, "Uploading 20 photos is too much."

In contrast, the function of the Xinghua APP has been further upgraded, uploading or taking 3 avatar photos can create a user-based AI doppelganger, and support the construction of different virtual world backgrounds.

At the same time, the Xinghua APP is currently free for users to use. In the track of AI raw pictures, Douyin's wave is really menacing, but it is not yet known that Xinghua will surpass the wonderful duck camera in the future.

It is worth noting that the layout of the AI image generation function will be an important starting point for Douyin to empower the short video track. At present, on social platforms, the discussion about Douyin's AI function has become more and more hot, and the public is full of curiosity and expectation for the creativity of AI functions.

The "TikTok" of the AI era is still the blueprint

Today, Douyin is accelerating the development of AI technology. At present, the Douyin Flow department has developed a number of AI products.

For example, the AI dialogue assistant Doubao (overseas version of Cici), the AI bot development platform Buckle (overseas version of Coze), the AI character interactive APP Talking Stove, the AI emotional companion chat robot "Douyin Xiaoqing", the product "Instant Creation" for e-commerce content creation, and the AI tool collection Little Wukong (ChitChop), etc.

Among them, the DAU (number of daily active users) of doubao surpassed Baidu Wenxin Yiyan in February and March this year to become the first in the market. The total global DAU of Doubao/Cici is about 3 million, which is currently the top 1 among Douyin's AI-related products.

The button (overseas version of Coze) was launched in February this year, and the DAU has reached the million level at this stage. The product is an open platform in the middle layer, benchmarking Dify.AI, and is committed to helping B-end users create applications based on large models. The bottom layer is not limited to the Douyin lark model, but has been connected to large models such as Ali Tongyi Qianwen and the Dark Side of the Moon.

The stove, which is benchmarked against MiniMax's "Hoshino" product, was launched in March this year. Users can start conversations with recommended AI avatars, supporting a variety of needs from casual to in-depth communication. This product is in the early stages of development.

Source: Stove APP details page

In contrast, MiniMax's "Hoshino" has dominated the overseas charts for a long time, and its monthly active users have exceeded 10 million.

Douyin has multiple AI product lines in parallel, and even added AI functions to businesses such as Jianying. According to a person from Doubao, many of the above products are in a highly iterative stage, "I personally think, especially Flow, can be said to be the department with the greatest internal strength in the entire byte." ”

In many directions such as social networking, graphic and text, and e-commerce, Douyin has a layout. This kind of wide-pitched strategy frequently benchmarks against competitors, which shows that Douyin is very eager to create a new super APP.

Previously, according to Sina Technology, the Flow department is subordinate to the Product R&D and Engineering Department (internally referred to as "PDI"), which consists of four major business lines, including AI education, internationalization, community and bean bag. There are more than 100 people in the Flow department, and they are still recruiting for positions such as production and research through social recruitment and school recruitment.

A Douyin employee also revealed that many employees of Wenxin Yiyan and Alibaba Cloud have jumped to the Flow department, but the employee also revealed that the current work intensity of the entire department is very high, "I work 6 days a week by default, and sometimes I have to work overtime on Sundays." ”

According to a person close to Douyin, Douyin has transferred elite soldiers from the whole group to support the department's AI business in the future, and some of TikTok's core product personnel have also been transferred to Flow.

In February this year, Zhang Nan, the former CEO of Douyin Group, resigned as the CEO of the group and will focus on the development of Jianying. Zhang Nan personally led the team to seek a breakthrough in AI-assisted creation, and plans to launch an AI-generated and video product.

As Douyin's video content creation platform, Jianying is one of the scenarios most in line with the implementation of AI, and it is also the key business for Douyin to catch up with Open AI. data.ai data shows that in January 2023, the monthly active users of the overseas version of CapCut have exceeded 200 million.

At the beginning of this year, Open AI launched its first video model, Sora, which caused shockwaves in the industry. There has been a new breakthrough in Wensheng video technology.

Source: Sora simulation renderings

Shortly after the release of Sora, Douyin also launched a "Chinese version of Sora" - Boximator. However, there is still a big gap between this product and the leading video generation models abroad.

The arms race in the age of AI has quietly begun. Douyin is clearly lagging behind in the development of the AI field, and there is still a lot to be done to reverse this situation.

AI e-commerce has become an important training ground

E-commerce is undoubtedly one of the best scenarios for the practical application and commercialization of AI technology. Jack Ma once said, "The era of AI e-commerce has just begun, and it is both an opportunity and a challenge for everyone. ”

Major manufacturers have begun to rub shoulders in the field of AI e-commerce, trying to make breakthroughs in AI e-commerce first.

This year, Ali also launched an AIGC intelligent creation platform that can generate graphics and texts with one click for Taobao and e-commerce talents-Painted Frog.

Painted Frog is the e-commerce version of "Wonderful Duck Camera", which helps merchants quickly generate marketing images and copy. Taking single-product grass planting as an example, the merchant fills in the product link or product ID, and then introduces the product selling point, personality, and note topic to generate grass planting copy.

The function of AI raw pictures is similar to that of Miao Ya Camera, you only need to upload 15-20 photos of the real model's big face, as well as a full-body picture of the real model, and you can get an exclusive AI virtual model in about 30 minutes.

For merchants, Painted Frog can indeed be said to be a tool to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Douyin's AI application exploration in e-commerce involves scenarios such as search, creation, and shopping guide. This year, Douyin has launched features such as live broadcast playback, automatic editing, and intelligent live broadcast.

In particular, the automatic editing function of live broadcast playback will be of great help to the delivery mode of live slicing. It is reported that in 2022, Brother Xiao Yang will earn 187 million just by relying on live slicing.

JD.com has recently engaged in AI digital human live broadcasting, and even launched an AI digital human anchor in the shape of founder Liu Qiangdong. In the first live broadcast on April 17, Liu Qiangdong's AI digital human live broadcast turnover exceeded 50 million yuan.

In addition to the above-mentioned AI functions launched on the merchant side, major manufacturers have also launched some AI tools on the consumer side. For example, Taobao's AI assistant "Taobao Ask".

However, at present, AI applications are still in the early stages, and the functions are still not mature enough, and they have not yet given rise to real explosive applications. Especially at the C-end user level, many AI applications have been reduced to a new toy.

Not only that, but the application of AI at the B-end merchant level is not satisfactory.

A large number of AI pictures poured into the seller show, which caused consumers to be disgusted, and the shopping experience that did not match the pictures and texts was frequently complained about. The traffic of AI anchors is also not stable, and the gimmicks are often greater than the actual benefits.

Players' exploration in the field of AI e-commerce is far from reaching the boundary.

Author | Pandora

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